When you think about the black market, I’m sure the majority of you will think of prohibition days.  When alcohol was made illegal, it did two things: It made the bad guys more money, and it put the average joe in a dangerous position while trying to acquire it.  Bring in the 21^stcentury. Sure, there still is a black market… but come on, who is afraid of mobsters anymore? Today, we have a gaming black market. It has been around for years, but will it survive? With more and more games moving towards auction houses, could game companies “tame” the gaming black market?

In the old days of gaming on the internet, we spent most of our online time playing hearts, spades… whatever we could do while connected to the internet. As the years went by, better and better games came about. Then, suddenly, interactive multiplayer games came into the picture. These interactive games, mainly MMORPGS, allowed for characters to pick up and keep randomly generated objects known as “loot”. This evolution of gaming created the black market.

In the eyes of the software companies, the game is only being leased/rented by the end user. You don’t actually have any rights to the game. This is where the market becomes black.  The software companies don’t want you making money of “virtual” goods that are housed on the software or servers of the game you are playing on.  The software companies, at this point, started to get smarter.

Where there is a demand…

Much of success is about performance. It’s about what we do and what we are able to inspire others to do. There are some simple performance principles I have learned in my life, and I want to share them with you.  They really bring success, and what it takes to be successful, into sharp focus. They are also the basis for developing and maintaining an expectation of success.

The Five Principles of Performance

1. We generally get from ourselves and others what we expect. It is a huge fact that you will either live up or down to your own expectations. If you expect to lose, you will. If you expect to be average, you will be average. If you expect to feel bad, you probably will. If you expect to feel great, nothing will slow you down. And what is true for you is true for others. Your expectations for others will become what they deliver and achieve. As Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

2. The difference between good and excellent companies is training. The only thing worse than training employees and losing them is to not train them and keep them! A football team would not be very successful if they did not train, practice, and prepare for their opponents. When you think of training as practice and preparation, it makes you wonder how businesses survive that do not make significant training investments in their people.

Actually, companies that do not train their people and invest in their ability don’t last. They operate from a competitive disadvantage and are eventually gobbled up and defeated in the marketplace. If you want to improve and move from good to excellent, a good training strategy will be the key to success.

Many of us who have iPhones download every interesting app we find on the App Store, especially when they’re free. They can range from a simple payment method app, to a game, to a measurement tool. But, as you may have noticed, our phones become cluttered with tons of pages that we have to swipe through to get to an app that we need on demand. However, with an update by Apple that came out not so long ago, you are able to group your applications into categories that are easily accessible, for all of you organization lovers.

To achieve this grouping method, take a hold of one of the applications you want to categorize. Take a game for example. What you want to do is press your finger on that particular application, and hold it there until all of the applications on the screen begin to jiggle. This is where the magic happens. Drag it over to another game application you want to have in the same category, and release. Your applications should now be held in a little container on your screen. However, a step ago, if you did not have another game application on the same screen, and since you can’t swipe, try putting the held game application on any application you choose, and simply remove that extra application from the list, after moving over another gaming application from a different page.

C TRAINING – THE THREE MAIN STAGES OF PROGRAMMING DEVELOPMENT

If you are an aspiring programmer, learning about programming in C is one of the most integral steps of your development.  It is essential that you get the highest quality C training, so that you are well-grounded in the language, and are going to be able to fulfill most of your programming and developmental tasks.  Learning about all aspects of the programming language, including how to fully utilize its portability and design will help you to secure your future in computer programming.  These are some of the concepts you should familiarize yourself with:

·         Major elements of the programming language – This includes things like libraries of functions, using data flow control, and a thourough examination of the basic data types the language is able to address.  As you learn about these fundamental elements, make sure to get practical experience during the course of your C training also, by actually writing programs that follow whatever curriculum you have chosen.

·         Different techniques and other programming elements – Different series of coursework choose to emphasize different things, but try to learn as much as you can about different techniques that are actually employed.  Manipulating both characters and strings, allocating dynamic memory in the proper manner, defining macros, and utilizing the runtime library are all examples of these elements.